An Affirmation of Vocation

Whew, does “this shelf” need dusting! Last week, I threw open the curtains and cracked the window … and, boy, did it reveal how neglected this space has been! My own home, husband and children have been less neglected (if not necessarily perfectly attended), however, so I really can’t regret the time I’ve not devoted to writing!

Incidentally, do you agree with my dear AuntieLeila that a woman ought to devote herself first and foremost to her Lord, her husband, her children and, ahem, her home, whatever else she chooses to do with her remaining free time? She created quite a dust-up (no pun intended!) with what I thought was a fairly innocuous, self-evident suggestion!

When I last posted in this space — more than a year ago! — I highlighted the nursery I had belatedly decorated for Mint Julep. Presciently, I wrote, “By the time I could make {every last little design dream for this room} happen, I’ll probably be redesigning it for a new phase of his life or to accommodate a sibling, God willing!”

While I haven’t yet redesigned that room, I have, in fact, redesigned our fourth and final bedroom to accommodate a sibling — for, in the time that I have not written, I’ve carried and birthed our third baby! Cinnamon Sugar arrived at 10:33 p.m. Aug. 31, 2017, and has pretty seamlessly initiated himself into the family, utterly bewitching the Oilman and me and savvily ingratiating himself with Sweet Potato and Mint Julep in short order.

If “Cinnamon Sugar” seems like too sickeningly sweet a nickname for a tubby little tank of a baby boy (at five months, he’s wearing 12-mo. hand-me-downs from his big brother!), then I apologize, but “Cinnamon Sugar” he will nevertheless be dubbed because he could not possibly be any sweeter than he is!

You know how, some days, you don an outfit and, even before you’ve applied makeup or styled your hair, you know the clothing combination you’ve selected will just work? In this outfit, you feel sure, you’ll look poised, polished, joyful and attractive!

Some design schemes are like that, too. With even just a sliver of a sneak peek, you know that this room just works! The color palette, the selection of furniture, its arrangement — all the requisite elements combine to create a space that is, quite simply, beautiful. In this room, you feel sure, you’ll feel at once calm, peaceful, light-hearted and happy!

That’s how my sweet friend’s newest baby boy’s nursery is. One look at the photos she texted and all I wanted was to curl up in the cozy glider, collect my children in my lap and read a story book to them! That’s not how Mint Julep’s nursery was for me.

In my freshman year of college, I roomed with one of the least selfish people I’ve ever met. She was extraordinarily self-disciplined, incredibly generous and generally good-humored with a contagious laugh. As a committed Christian, she began and ended each day with the Word.

When we were juniors in college, she married a similarly sterling man. A few months after their wedding, I asked her what it was like to be married. I’ll never forget her answer.

Today is the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael — or, as it was once called, Michaelmas. (Head on over to the eponymousCarrots for Michaelmas for ideas to celebrate this feast!) It’s a day that has assumed ever-increasing significance for me as a Christian disciple, wife and mother.

Throughout my adolescence and first few years of adulthood, I was oblivious to, if not in outright denial of, spiritual warfare. Oh, sure, I had an acute conscience, I believed in right and wrong, and, as I strove to choose the right, I often experienced inertia, anxiety, doubt, despair and all manner of interior struggle — but I still had a vague sense that my spiritual difficulties stemmed solely from my own concupiscence and sinfulness.

Actually, I probably didn’t even think in terms that close to the truth (after all, my spiritual difficulties did and do stem largely from my own fallen nature!). Had you asked me at the time why I struggled interiorly, I would have either balked entirely or confidently spouted psychobabble about past “traumas” (Spoiler: I’ve really never suffered any!).*

When I was 11 years old and encountered the Rule of Saint Benedict for the first time, I promptly adapted the idea of “a rule of life” to my own particular circumstances and churned out a little document I dubbed “The Kristinian Rule.”

The rule admonished me to pray three times a day (hey, like the Didache!), to practice piano for two hours daily and to finish my evenings with some kind of “wholesome” hobby like “embroidering.” (I don’t recall how faithful I was at following all of it, but I know for a fact I rarely got in my full two hours of piano practice!) One of these days, I’ll dig out that old rule and publish it; I think you’d get a kick out of it.

At the time, I thought I was highly original in doing this. Obviously, I was very young.

As I’ve written before, I’m fond of periodicals. A very few, I recommend and endorse — but I read a wider variety than I recommend. My own mama and the Oilman’s mother both know this and pass along the magazines to which they subscribe.

In this way, the September issues of WSJ and 405 magazine came to reside temporarily in my periodicals tray. Last weekend, I browsed both. As I did, I was reminded yet again of the sweep and allure of self-styled “culture,” that affected, self-conscious, stilted, self-referential realm of celebrity, whether national or local.

All of the true elements of culture are there — art, architecture, music, food, literature, beauty — and, yet, it all rings false to me somehow, smacks of self-importance, insecurity and desperation. Its self-proclaimed highest aspiration — to be original — all too often amounts to nothing more than its negative, which is not to be derivative, not to be imitative.